"Immersion" by Kennedy Allen

Immersion

            He’d died not long ago—or at least, not long by the standards of his race—but that day and all that preceded it were almost beyond the reach of his memory. Nothing before his transformation mattered to the being he had become. Before that day, before his death, he’d been weak.

            He was not cruel; he was a predator. There was a subtle discrepancy between the two, though that difference was most often invoked to the benefit of primitive animals, and not in defense of those like him. The vampire believed his prey to be inferior. He would never be in danger of overestimating a human’s abilities, nor could he ever truly forget that what he hunted was far below him. He was power. When he walked the streets, those roads were feared.

            Prey walked into his line of sight; a human of average everything who sensed a dangerous presence nearby. It spiced the air with fear. The vampire breathed in deeply, savoring the mortal’s cowardice around the alley stink. He was hungry, and this one’s blood would flow hot and red.

            He stalked the prey, every one of his superior senses on alert, watching, watching. With every look, with every breath, he grew more hungry, his craving more intense, his need more consuming. He could hear, he could smell, he could sense the blood that pumped through arteries and veins, and his whole being cried out for the second that heart would stop. He was a blank void, an empty vessel, wholly consumed by need.

            He closed the distance, quickly sliding up behind the prey. One preternaturally strong arm slapped around and over a scream that was just seconds too late. The vampire’s blood teeth emerged with barely-felt pain, then dug into his prey’s neck.

            The human’s knees gave out, and the vampire slid his other arm around the prey’s waist to keep the body upright. For just a moment, the prey held still, waiting to drift or to scream, overcome by the subtly erotic and total fear that captured every sense a human could know. Then the fear started to fade, disappearing with the lost awareness and stolen blood.

And a mind snapped awake.

            The vampire allowed his meal to struggle again. The mortal’s life was almost gone, strength all but depleted, so he could permit this last defiance. In the end, his humans almost always wanted to die fighting.

Then, the vampire effortlessly snapped the scrawny neck.

And he drank.

Blood, memories, life now flowed through him. And he was filled. Love, hate, caring, wrath, and desire…he soon knew that if he caught sight of a certain silhouette his breath would catch. Memories, desires, none of them his own…

When he was done, the vampire spared a last glance to the weak husk at his feet and turned, leaving behind only an empty vessel. He stalked away, his head held high against the dark.